Just What Kind of a Party is Corpse Party?

So you’ve taken an interest in Corpse Party, have you? Perhaps you were intrigued by the launch trailer, or laughed at the name when you saw it mentioned on your favorite gaming news site (or hilarious webcomic?). Perhaps you’re a fan of survival horror games, or visual novels, or point-and-click adventures… or perhaps you simply enjoy Japanese horror movies like The Ring and The Grudge, and are always looking for your next fix.

Regardless of why you’ve taken an interest or how you got to this blog, there’s one thing that most likely holds true: You have very little idea what Corpse Party actually is.

Our launch trailer focused on the most important aspects of the game – those being its unsettling atmosphere and its dark-as-night storyline – but did very little to indicate exactly how it’s played. So, let’s dig a little deeper and find out exactly what horrors await, shall we?

In the broadest terms, Corpse Party is a horror adventure game. You play as an ensemble cast of seven senior high school students, one junior high school student and one senior high school English teacher. The game’s story is split into five chapters, each of which focuses (more or less) on one particular subset of these characters as they explore a haunted, otherworldly elementary school in an attempt to find some way out without dying or losing their minds. Their efforts are thwarted at every turn not only by those responsible for this ethereal school’s existence, but also by the vengeful spirits of other students just like them who were drawn into this dimension against their will and met with unfortunate (and usually quite gruesome) ends.

Many have posited that Corpse Party plays out like a visual novel, but that’s really not the case. While some scenes (such as the unlockable “Extra Chapters”) consist purely of dialogue-driven cinematics, most of the game is fully interactive, allowing you to walk around and explore Heavenly Host Elementary as you see fit, carefully examining objects and piecing together the sordid history of the school at every turn. There’s no combat, per se, but you are often confronted by hostile paranormals or potentially fatal environmental hazards and must make decisions on where to go, how to proceed or what to say. The wrong decision will either immediately or eventually lead you down a path toward one of the game’s vast multitudes of “Wrong Ends,” or bad endings – generally long, drawn-out and meticulously detailed death scenes brought to life through a combination of 2D sprite animation, full-screen art stills, meaty, squishy sound effects and high-quality Japanese voice-acting (recorded binaurally to create the illusion of 3D sound, making headphones an absolute must!).

Occasionally, you’ll find yourself being chased by a malevolent spirit (or two, or three), and the game never makes it very easy to get away. You’ll often need the perfect blend of dexterity and innovative thinking to survive these ordeals – not just running for your life, but also trying to find some way of escaping a room that really, really doesn’t want to let you leave. In one such instance, getting caught by your pursuer means being shoved into a shallow grave and slowly buried alive as you listen to one of the game’s strongest characters suffocating and retching under endless shovelfuls of dirt, begging for his life for almost five solid minutes before the last gasp of breath escapes his mouth and the “Wrong End” music plays. Wrong, indeed!

So no, this is definitely much more than a visual novel. Though Corpse Party’s gameplay ultimately exists as a vessel for telling an intensely creepy, gory and unsettling mystery story, there’s always something new to see, some new psychotic spirit to escape or some new puzzle to solve. And with over 80 corpses of your predecessors to find, three proper endings to achieve and a whopping twenty-four “Wrong Ends” to witness (and believe me, morbid curiosity will make you want to see them all, even if they’re hard to watch!), you’ll surely be scarred for life long before you ever put this game down.

Watch for its release in the PlayStation Store this fall… and prepare to sleep with the lights on for a while (not that it’ll help!).

We’re still working out the kinks and fine-tuning things, so we’re unable to give a release date at moment. Our goal is “as soon as possible,” but how soon that will be depends on how smoothly the rest of the QA and mastering processes go. Stay tuned for more news as things begin falling into place.

Not yet. Since we’re releasing it exclusively on PSN, though, we won’t have all that overhead from package production and distributors and shelf space and such, so you can probably count on it being nice and affordable!

Sadly, Halloween seems like a no-go. We tried… but there’s just too much that needs to be done, and not enough time in the day to finish it all before then. Game publication is a surprisingly complicated process, and sometimes, it just takes longer than we thought.

We want this game released as soon as possible, though, so rest assured, we’ll get it to you guys as quickly as we can!

And in terms of price point, we’re still working on that — but you can count on it being nice and affordable, at the very least.

We’re just the American (and European, perhaps?) publisher. We didn’t make the game — an independent software house called Team GrisGris created it, a Japanese developer called 5pb remade it for PSP, and us? We’re handle the translating, text editing, QA, advertising and publication.

So the game already exists in Japanese. We’re just making it exist in English now!

Neither 5pb nor Team GrisGris has broken through into anime production just yet, but I agree, Corpse Party would make a fantastic anime series. If it ever happens, we’d love to work on it — or at least watch it! ;)

This “Interactive Visual Novel” did indeed pick my curiosity. If like you said, the price will be affordable (looking foward to 9.99$ :P ) then yeah i’ll certainly buy it to play this on full moon nights in my bed by the window right before sleep ^^ that’ll be awsome .

This game isn’t for me but I just wanted to show some love for Ys Seven. Picked it up without knowing what to expect, and my god its awesome so far. The first couple of boss battles are so intense; my hand was like hurting after them because everything was so fast and fun.

So XSeed has definetely made a great impression on me so far, will look into the Legend Of Heroes:Tits after Ys. I love me some old school RPG’s to. Keep up the great work!

Yaaay! Glad to hear you enjoyed Ys Seven! Definitely try out the other Ys games, as well as Trails in the Sky — if you enjoy classic RPG action, they should fit the bill quite nicely.

Corpse Party isn’t for everyone, but I should mention that it has a surprisingly deep story with some very well-developed, interesting characters. Its plot could stand side-by-side with any respectable RPG’s and still come out looking great, so I wouldn’t dismiss it outright! Unless you scare or are disgusted really, really easily, anyway… in which case, yeah, this might not quite be the right fit for you. ;)

@ knicksrulez220 I agree with you, Ys Seven was indeed a great game, but i must add the whole Ys series is simply amazing. I find it a little sad that this series is still soo much in the dark in North America even though they are great Action/RPGs.

if it was on the psn so i could play I would download it. the psp is pretty much dead. maybe if i pick up a vita when they come out ill download this. It just baffles me why it wouldnt be release on both ps3 downloadable and psp. seems like your missing a market.

Well, remember, this game was created in Japan, where the PSP is a much stronger platform than the PS3. For smaller Japanese developers, the PSP is an absolutely ideal choice.

And while the PSP isn’t as big as the PS3 here, it’s still got a pretty sizable following (I myself am an avid PSP supporter, with a huge collection of games). So we’re pretty confident that if a game is good, enough people will buy it to make it worth our while. And Corpse Party is a really, really good game.

We’d release it on PS3 too, if we could… but we’re just a publishing company. We translate, we edit, we do quality assurance… but we don’t program. It would be entirely up to the Japanese developers to create a PS3 version of Corpse Party.

@24 You realize the PSP is still a huge and thriving market in Japan, right? The original developers wouldn’t make a whole new game from the ground up for PS3, just for the NA market. This particular PSP game has already received 2 sequels, so it’s making good enough money over there.

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten you Europeans! In fact… I just checked with the powers that be, and confirmed that yes, we are indeed planning on releasing this game on European PSN — and it’s totally cool for me to say so! We’re not sure *when*, exactly, but we’re shooting for as close to the North American PSN release as we can manage.

We haven’t announced the price just yet, but as mentioned in another comment, the game is PSN-exclusive, meaning there are no additional overhead costs from production, packaging, shipping, distribution, shelf space, etc. And of course, we plan to pass the savings on to you… so the game will be quite affordable, for sure!

Wow! This does look cool. Totally reminds me of Y’s in a lot of ways. Hey XSeed, how come you haven’t redone all the rest of the Y’s games for us? There’s still a lot I haven’t gotten to play because they’re only in Japanese. Eh, eh? This looks awesome by-the-way.

I’m curious how Corpse Party would remind you of Ys, as the games are very, very different in almost every way. ;)

As for other Ys games, we’ve released all the ones we could easily release at the moment, but we’re exploring the possibility of releasing some of the older titles as well. Hopefully, an opportunity presents itself soon, and we’ll be able to work on an Ys title again.

finally another gr8 XSEED release , corpse party looks worth the time just from the trailer ( i wanna go out in the middle of the night on my psp hit max volume and scare some lil kids or adults :P good job keep em coming XSEED and PSN for making more major genres from the PS family’s home country come to the outside :)

Great work Tom, buy all my XSEED titles day 1. Completely in love with the Ys series. I know you guys have done a ton of PSP games recently, but is there any chance of more PC titles in the future (maybe on steam)?

It is very similar to Higurashi — in look, in feel, in atmosphere, in story, and even in music. Interestingly, though, Corpse Party actually predates Higurashi by quite a bit, as the original version of the game was made in 1996! I can’t say for certain if this is true, but I almost feel like Corpse Party inspired Higurashi, and then Higurashi inspired the Corpse Party remake in 2008.

Either way, if you’re a fan of Higurashi, you’re sure to love Corpse Party as well. Definitely give it a try — once you see the gameplay in action, I’m sure you’ll agree that the 16-bit style really, really suits it.

I’m sorry but as a dad, and a human being, I don’t think mutilated children qualifies as entertainment. I rarely get offended by subject material but that video was repulsive. Please tell me what I’m missing here and I will retract my disgust with this concept.

Simply put, it’s horror. It’s designed to terrify, because human beings generally love to get scared every now and again. It makes the adrenaline flow and awakens primal instincts and emotions that flood the brain and provide an instinctual reaction that, while unpleasant, somehow just… feels right.

It’s the whole reason we celebrate Halloween, basically.

In addition, this game is just as much a character study into the 9 protagonists and their relationships with one another. Like any good horror movie, you root for the good guys and hope beyond hope that they can make it out alive. You become emotionally invested in their journey, and want to see it through to the end… no matter what that end may be.

Corpse Party also has the unintended side effect of providing insight into classic Japanese horror culture, as this game is very distinctly Japanese in its general atmosphere, concepts and execution. It’s the same sort of psychological, deeply disturbing, hopeless and inescapable horror that you’ll find in works like The Ring and The Grudge.

In short, this is a game for horror and mystery fans. The things that happen in the game are absolutely repulsive… but they’re very much meant to be. You’re supposed to be disgusted by this game. It’s supposed to be hard to play, and give you nightmares… and personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. ;)

There’s actually a sequel to the game called “Corpse Party: Book of Shadows” which… kinda *is* a full 3D game! And it’s quite good, too — though I think ultimately, I prefer this one. The 16-bit look and feel really adds to the atmosphere in a way I honestly can’t articulate. It’s just… much creepier than it would be in full 3D, I think.

I’d just like to point out that The Ring and Grudge movies that many in the States are familiar with are not “Japanese horror.” The Grudge is based on Ju-on films from Japan that were directed by Takashi Shimizu, and the Ring was originally a novel by Koji Suzuki, entitled “Ring.”

You’re likely referring to the films that are very much American, not of Japanese make. The remakes and adaptations to film were poorly executed, IMO.

It just seems disrespectful to not give credit where credit is due.

That being said, I’ve been looking for an excuse to hop back onto my PSP, and so I’m looking forward to seeing what Corpse Party brings to the table. It’s an intriguing game, especially around this time of year. ^^

Oh, no disrespect was meant. The original Japanese movies are the ones I was referring to, actually — their names basically translate to “The Ring” and “The Grudge,” after all — but even if people are only familiar with the American adaptations of these two films, I believe these mentions would still suffice to convey the general idea of “Japanese horror” in this context. After all, despite any changes that were made to the originals, the basic execution and the general concept of “hopeless terror” was very similar from the Japanese films to their American counterparts.

This is pretty high-quality acting, though. And a good chunk of it consists of screams and cries and death wails, which would be high-pitched in ANY language — and probably wouldn’t sound anywhere near as convincing when dubbed, unless we were to get, like, the BEST ACTORS EVER. ;)

I think the Japanese voices will grow on you rather quickly as you play. I honestly can’t even imagine this game with any other voice actors in it, at this point.